Chapter 5. Egypt and Sudan Mesolithic To Early Dynastic (World Archaeology at The Pitt Rivers Museum)

Cite this paper as: Alice Stevenson 2013. Egypt and Sudan: Mesolithic to Early Dynastic Period.
In Dan Hicks and Alice Stevenson (eds) World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum: a characterization. Oxford: Archaeopress, pp. 60-89.
For further details on the book, and to order a copy, see http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/world.html
Egypt and Sudan: Mesolithic

to Early Dynastic Period
Alice Stevenson
5.1 Introduction
W.M. Flinders Petrie, the pioneering archaeologist, was suspicious of museums. He
suggested that they were ‘dangerous places’: ‘ghastly charnel-houses of murdered
evidence’ (Petrie 1904a: 48). Reflecting upon these concerns a century later,
however, we might have a more positive outlook. In large measure this is due to the
opportunities afforded by some of the earliest fieldwork documentation practices
instituted by Petrie and his colleagues, which sought to ensure that ‘a fit curator
may succeed in reuniting the long-severed information’ (ibid.: 49). Many Egyptian
archaeological collections today thus have significant research potential, including
those at the Pitt Rivers Museum (PRM).
Today, the PRM holds c. 15,639 archaeological artefacts from Egypt and Sudan
(excluding Palaeolithic material – see Chapter 4 above). Ancient Egypt often has a
prominent position in western museum displays. Even in the PRM, where objects
from different times and places jostle for visibility, Egyptian artefacts have their own
dedicated space in Case 7A of the Court. Within this cabinet are presented some
examples of the most iconic of Egyptian objects – mummified remains and coffins
(e.g. 1887.1.481, 1945.6.1). And elsewhere in the PRM, ancient Egyptian material
culture is also well represented relative to other areas and periods of archaeology.
There are some 280 further Egyptian archaeological artefacts interspersed throughout
the thematic cases of the galleries, many of which are as equally recognizable as
the coffins and mummies, such as those objects that have hieroglyphs or hieratic
inscribed upon them. They include the Oxford Bowl (1887.27.1, Figure 5.1), upon
which is written one of only about twenty known ‘Letters to the Dead’ (Gardiner
and Seth 1928; see 6.4.1 below). Other types of items on display in the PRM, and
commonly found in other museums, are Predynastic black-topped and painted
vessels, and bronze statuettes of deities and priests made in the first millennium
BCE, such as the bronze figure of a cat representing the goddess Bast, from the PRM
founding collection (1884.58.79; Figure 5.2).
A focus on such eye-catching or famous objects, however, would misrepresent
the full character of the PRM collection. For example, despite the prominence of the
Oxford Bowl in Egyptological literature (e.g. Bommas 1999: 56–7; Gardiner and Sethe
1928: 27, plate IX; Willems 2001: 347), there are actually very few written documents
in the PRM collection. Meanwhile, while Predynastic vessels are common on the art
Copyright © Pitt Rivers Museum, Archaeopress, editors and individual authors 2013.
The Pitt Rivers Museum’s database can be accessed through the museum’s website at http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk.
Research enquiries about the collections should be addressed to:
Head of Collections, Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Email: objects.colls@prm.ox.ac.uk
EGYPT AND SUDAN: MESOLITHIC TO EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD 61
Figure 5.1 The Oxford

Bowl: an Egyptian
‘letter to the dead’ (PRM
Accession Number
1887.27.1). This small
ceramic bowl is one of
about twenty known
Egyptian ‘letters to the
dead’. It has three lines
of hieratic inscription
painted around the
exterior dating to the Late
Middle Kingdom/Second
Intermediate Period. The
text addresses a deceased
family member.
Figure 5.2 Egyptian

bronze figure of a seated
cat with inlaid collar and
pendant, representing
the goddess Bast, dating
from the first millennium
BCE. From the Pitt
Rivers Museum founding
collection (PRM Accession
Number 1884.58.79).
62 WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY AT THE PITT RIVERS MUSEUM
market, and are therefore often of unknown origin, the vast majority of the PRM’s
Predynastic pottery actually derives from known excavations: something which is not
true for four of the ten Predynastic vessels currently on display in the PRM.
The majority of the Egyptian archaeological material within the PRM founding
collection was made up of bronze figurines, which were never Pitt-Rivers’ primary
interest. He only visited Egypt once in 1881 (Bowden 1991: 90–3; Stevenson 2011)
and his own publications concerning the archaeology of Egypt are limited; his papers
on Stone Age tools from the Nile Valley (Pitt-Rivers 1882) and on the Egyptian
boomerang (1883) are more in keeping with his primary scholarly interests, rather
than the more conventional Egyptological endeavours that the visibility of the
archaeology of Egypt in today’s displays in the PRM might suggest. While not all
the objects associated with Pitt-Rivers’ publications are part of the PRM’s collection,
in their entirety the PRM’s Egyptian accessions are closer to the character of the
General’s work overall, and his interest in the development of types and technologies.
Similarly, PRM Curator Henry Balfour’s interest in the archaeology of Egypt lay in the
technological aspects of material culture, such as bows and arrows (1896.2.1 .1–17;
Balfour 1897), and this is reflected in his additions to the PRM Egyptian collection,
which include pottery moulds, pottery lamps for the lighting series, coins for the
currency series and stone tools.
A correlate of the fascination with Egypt has, however, been that the archaeology
of its southern neighbour, Sudan, was eclipsed in the early development of the
discipline in North Africa. As O.G.S. Crawford noted in 1948 in an article entitled
‘People without a History’, when Egyptologists looked southwards their focus
remained upon the Egyptian temples and scripts, rather than on the wider archaeology
of Sudanese communities (cf. Chapter 8). This tendency is reflected in many western
museum collections, which whilst abundant in Egyptian material culture largely
lack non-Egyptian artefacts from sites in Sudan. At the PRM this gap stands rather
starkly in contrast with the wealth of ethnographic material from Southern Sudan
(Edwards 2007: 213), which has been the subject of significant research activity.1 It
is only recently that more concentrated research efforts to begin to elucidate cultural
sequences in Sudan have been undertaken (Edwards 2004), by which time the PRM
had ceased to acquire archaeological material in the manner in which it had in the late
19th and early 20th centuries.
Today, the PRM holds around 11,500 archaeological artefacts from ancient Egypt
and Sudan (excluding Palaeolithic material and post-Roman material: see Chapters 4
and 8), the vast majority of which is not on display. This represents one of the largest
collections of its kind in the UK: of the 195 museums in the UK that hold ancient
Egyptian archaeological collections, only 18 hold more than 2500 objects (Serpico
2006: 7). Yet the Egyptian collection is not as visible or as well known as its fellow
University of Oxford collection in the Ashmolean Museum, and thus has received
far less attention from archaeologists working with Egyptian or Sudanese material.
Given the popular appeal of ancient Egypt relative to other archaeological
regions, museums have often acquired artefacts via private collectors and the art
market. Some 62 % of the PRM ancient Egyptian collection, however, derives from
published excavations (Tables 5.1 and 5.2; see also Figures 5.3 and 5.4). Thus, the
collection represents a valuable resource for the study of the history of archaeological
fieldwork in Egypt and for modern reanalysis of excavated assemblages. For this
reason, this chapter begins with a brief discussion of the issues involved in studying
excavated material from Egypt in museums (5.2), as a necessary precursor to the
discussion of chronological eras of the archaeology of Egypt and Sudan. The rest
1
http://southernsudan.prm.ox.ac.uk/
Number of
Site Year Organization Publication objects Donor(s)
Abydos 1907–08 None Garstang 1909 13 Francis Legge
Abydos: Cemetery D 1900–01 EEF MacIver and Mace 1902 11 EEF
Abydos: Cemetery G 1901–02 EEF Petrie 1902, 34–5 2 EEF
MacIver & Mace 1902,
Abydos: Cemetery X 1899–1900 EEF 53–5 1 EEF
Abydos: Osiris Temenos 1901–02 EEF Petrie et al. 1902 24 EEF
Abydos: Osiris Temple,
‘Chamber M64’ 1902–03 EEF Petrie 1903 12 EEF
Abydos: Enclosures Transferred from
(Tombs of the Courtiers) 1921–22 BSAE Petrie 1925 8 OUMNH 1946
Abydos: Umm el-Qa’ab 1900–01 EEF Petrie 1901a 315 EEF
Alawiyeh 1900–01 ERA Garstang 1903 1 ERA
Antinoe 1913–14 EEF Johnson 1914 41 EEF
Badari 1923–24 BSAE Brunton 1928 1 BSAE
Behnasa (Oxyrhynchus) 1902–04 EEF Grenfell and Hunt 52 EEF
Bet Khallaf 1900–01 ERA Garstang 1903 46 ERA
Thebes: Deir el Bahri 1903–04 EEF Naville 1907 117 EEF
Dendereh 1897 EEF Petrie 1898a 10 EEF
Deshasheh 1897 EEF Petrie 1898b 11 Petrie
Diospolis Parva (Abadieya
and Hu) 1898–99 EEF Petrie 1901b 18 EEF
Ehnasya 1903–04 EEF Petrie 1904; 1905 37 EEF
el Amrah 1900–01 EEF MacIver and Mace 1901 449 Randall MacIver
el Mahasna 1900–01 ERA Garstang,1903 c.1623 ERA
Royal Anthropological
Caton-Thompson and Institute of Great
Fayum 1927–28 RAI Gardner 1934 73 Britain
Gerzeh 1910–11 BSAE Wainwright 1912 11 BSAE
Hawara 1888 None Petrie 1889 10 Petrie
1910–11 BSAE 2
Hierakonpolis 1897–98 ERA Quibell and Green 1902 1 EEF

Koptos 1894 EEF Petrie 1896 2 EEF
Flinders Petrie &
Lahun and Gurob 1889, 1890 Independent Petrie 1890, 1891 285 Kennard
Flinders Petrie &
Meydum 1890–91 Independent Petrie 1892 20 Haworth
Brunton 1928
Qau 1922–23 BSAE Brunton 1930 75 BSAE
Sinai 1904–05 EEF Petrie 1906 48 EEF
Tarkhan 1911–12 BSAE Petrie et. al. 1913 10 BSAE
Tell el Amarna 1921–22 EEF Peet and Woolley 1923 5 EES Committee
Thebes: Ramesseum 1896 ERA Quibell 1898 5 ERA & Flinders Petrie
Caton-Thompson and
Umm es Sawan (Fayum) 1927–28 RAI Gardner 1934 42 RAI
Table 5.1 Principal excavated assemblages from Egypt in the Pitt Rivers Museum.
[Key: BSAE= British School of Archaeology in Egypt; EEF= Egypt Exploration Fund; EES= Egypt Exploration Society; ERA= Egypt Research
Account; OUMNH= Oxford University Museum of Natural History; RAI= Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain]
Approx.
Year no. of
Site Excavated Organization Publication reference Objects1 Donor
Kawa Before 1932 University of Oxford Macadam 1955 98 Griffith
Griffith 1923; Griffith Archive
Sanam 1913 University of Oxford Oxford 1082 Griffith
Dongola: unspecified
sites2 1912–13 University of Oxford Unknown 3544 Griffith
Faras: Hathor
Temple 1911–12 University of Oxford Griffith 1921b, 84–9 c.1731 Griffith
Faras: Meroitic Griffith 1924; 1925; 1926 Griffith
Cemetery 1911–12 University of Oxford Archive Oxford 772 Griffith
Faras: Protodynastic Griffith (1 via
Cemetery 1911–12 University of Oxford Griffith 1921a 10 Ashmolean)
Jebel Moya 1910–14 Wellcome Excavations Addison 1949 295 Wellcome Trustees
Sudan Government
Khartoum 1944–45 Antiquities Service Arkell 1949 102 Shinnie
Khor Bahan 1907–08 University of Oxford Reisner 1910 1 Thomas
9–11 Feb.
Faragab 1912 Independent Seligman 1914–16 180 Seligman
Wadi Howar 1935 Independent Shaw et al. 1936 166 Kennedy Shaw
Table 5.2 Principal excavated assemblages from Sudan in the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum.
1
The high number of objects for Sudan is a correlate of the manner in which they have been documented in the Museum catalogue, which
includes estimates for large numbers of single beads, which in other cases are often counted simply as one set.
2
Much of the material from this site was not accessioned until recently and the precise locales seem to have been lost, but the associated numbers
on objects may permit the re-establishment of contexts in the future.
of the chapter examines the Mesolithic to Early Dynastic Period (c.7000 to 2637
BCE, 5.3–5.8), before the later periods are considered in Chapters 6 (Old Kingdom
to Late Period, 2637 to 332 BCE), and 7 (Greco-Roman Period, 332 BCE to c. 640
CE). The Sudanese material discussed in this chapter primarily includes Khartoum
Mesolithic material and Terminal Nubian A-Group artefacts (5.5.6). Chapter 6
includes Sudanese (Kushite) material from sites that cover the Old Kingdom to Late
Period. Sudanese Meroitic Period material (300 BCE–400 CE) is mentioned in both
chapters 6 and 7, as the database does not currently distinguish between earlier and
later Sudanese material and several of the earlier Kushite sites included were re-used
in the Meroitic period.
5.2 Excavations and Museum collections

The vast majority of excavated Egyptian material the PRM (Table 5.1), and in British
museums more generally, comes from the enterprises of three organisations founded
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: the Egypt Exploration Fund (EEF),2 the
Egyptian Research Account (ERA) and the British School of Archaeology in Egypt
(BSAE). Sponsors of these groups included museums and following each season
finds would be divided between Egyptian and foreign institutions. As a consequence
a single site’s artefacts would be fragmented and dispersed across the globe.
Supporters of these organizations would also receive annual memoirs summarizing
the work undertaken in Egypt. Although Petrie extolled the virtues of complete
recording of sites (Petrie 1904a), the publications that he and his students produced
2
Now known as the Egypt Exploration Society. See www.ees.ac.uk.
Figure 5.3 Map of

Sudan showing the
main archaeological sites
discussed in Chapters 5,
6 and 7.
were often very brief. The PRM objects that are associated with these excavations
thus provide opportunities for re-examination of sites that were explored more than
a century ago, especially given that many objects retain excavator’s marks upon them
allowing linkages to be made to their original findspots and associated assemblages.
The limitations of the excavation reports can also be countered to some extent by the
archives held in the Egypt Exploration Society (EEF/EES excavations), the Petrie
Museum, UCL (EEF/EES, BSAE and ERA excavations), and the Griffith Institute,
Figure 5.4 Map

of Egypt showing
Predynastic and Early
Dynastic archaeological
sites referred to in
Chapter 5.
University of Oxford (Oxford Expedition to Nubia; Henry Wellcome’s campaigns).

The problem of the division of material across several institutions can also be
mitigated, to a degree, by the presence of unpublished distribution lists held by these
institutes for most of these sites and thus it is possible to track down related objects.
This has proved a useful tool for this project as it has permitted us to establish the
uniqueness of the PRM’s collections relative to other institutions. Nevertheless, there
are caveats associated with such archives, such as the recognition that not everything
listed on the distribution lists was necessarily sent or received by institutions, and also
the fact that there are instances where extra objects were sent that were not noted
down. It is also possible that private individuals subsequently made donations of
material that they had received through sponsorship of, or purchase from, the EEF,
ERA or BSAE, including the excavators and their colleagues. One letter3 from Petrie
to Tylor in the PRM dated 2 June 1898 highlights another aspect of post-excavation
3
PRM Tylor Papers/Box 13/P9
biographies of artefacts: ‘…we gave away many broken and damaged examples and
someone has got hold of them that I did not intend’.
Whilst the work of the EEF, ERA and BSAE was extensive prior to the Second
World War, subsequent to it and the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 the role of the UK
in Egyptian excavations was more difficult, and the BSAE/ERA ceased to exist after
1954. In the interim the focus shifted to the Sudan where the British had been involved
in rescue operations associated with the construction of the Aswan High Damn in
the early 20th century. The PRM has objects from both periods of UK involvement
in the Sudan, but more strongly the earlier work, in large measure due to the central
involvement of the University of Oxford, beginning with Francis Llewellyn Griffith,
but later in the forties and fifties through Peter Shinnie and Anthony Arkell who also
had strong Oxford connections through their education here.
The opportunities for museum acquisition of excavated material have been
increasingly curtailed throughout the 20th century, following the discovery of
Tutankhamun’s tomb in the 1920s. In 1983 Egypt enacted Law 117, which, among
other provisions, vested ownership of all antiquities discovered after that date in the
Egyptian nation. This formalized the constriction of the amount of material from
foreign excavations that could be exported from Egypt that had been increasingly
been applied throughout the 1970s after Egypt had signed the UNESCO convention.
As a result, excavated material is no longer permitted to leave Egypt. Consequently,
if scholars are interested in analyzing material outside Egypt they are reliant upon
the material collected by previous generations of archaeologists, thus increasing the
importance of well-documented Egyptian collection in museums such as the PRM.
Whilst the periods in the Egyptian past discussed in this and subsequent chapters
are often associated with diagnostic artefacts, there are several classes of material
that are not so easily assigned to a specific time period without detailed knowledge
of their original context. Consequently, there are several items within the PRM’s
collection where it is unclear whether they should be considered in the earlier or the
later Egyptian study area for this project.
The site of the Early Dynastic royal burials at Abydos, in the area known as in the
Umm el-Qa’ab, is particularly problematic as it has a complex life-history. As with the
majority of royal Egyptian tombs these were plundered probably not long after the
funeral and set alight destroying much of the central burial chambers. Yet, because
of the identification in the Middle Kingdom of one of these tombs – that of King
Djer’s – as the mortuary complex of the god Osiris, the tombs were renovated and
became the focus of cult activity until Roman times. Indeed the site in Abydos, the
Umm el-Qa’ab – which means ‘mother of pots’ in Arabic – is so called because of
the prolific scatters of pottery sherds that are testament to centuries of activity in
the area. Furthermore, these tombs have been opened and sifted through by several
generations of excavators and of those endeavours that were reported in print, the
details were often limited and it is difficult to establish whether an object is original to
the ruler’s burial chambers, the surrounding retainer burials or relates to later activity.
Deir el-Bahri also has significant temporal depth, and thus aspects of its material is
also discussed in the chapters on the North African Palaeolithic and historical periods
(Chapters 4 and 8).
5.3 Overview of the Mesolithic, Neolithic, Predynastic and Early Dynastic

Egyptian and Sudanese Collections
When the PRM was founded the prehistory of Egypt was but a vague concept that
had not yet been defined temporally or materially. The first edition of Flinders Petrie’s
History of Egypt, From the Earliest Times to the XVIth Dynasty (Petrie 1894) thus contained
only a very short chapter entitled ‘Prehistoric Egypt’ with tentative observations of
racial types and geological formations, but descriptions of artefacts were notably
lacking. Similarly, the Early Dynastic Period was ‘a blank’ (Petrie 1894: 16). Yet, in
the ensuing six years Petrie’s work at Naqada and Abydos began to populate the
idea of prehistoric Egypt with material culture situated within an innovative relative
chronological framework (Petrie 1899). Thus in 1901 Petrie was able to report with
confidence that
‘The monumental history has been carried back to the very beginning of the
written record, which has been entirely confirmed; and beyond all that, the whole
course of the prehistoric civilisation has been mapped out for perhaps two
thousand years, more completely than has been done for such ages in any other
land.’ (Petrie 1901: cited in Drower 1985: 263).
It was also in 1901 that the PRM received its largest donation of early Egyptian
artefacts from the committees of EEF and ERA from the three archaeological sites
that form the core of the collection: the Predynastic cemetery of el-Amrah, the
Predynastic settlement of el-Mahasna, and the royal tombs of the First and Second
Dynasties at Abydos (Figure 5.4). Together these acquisitions account for 76.5%
of the archaeological objects from these periods from Egypt and Sudan (c. 2,592
objects). The early Egyptian archaeological collections considered in this chapter are
thus dominated by material from Upper Egypt: Predynastic Delta sites, for example,
are not well represented. Lower Egyptian sites are present in the form of Neolithic
assemblages from Gertrude Caton-Thompson’s work in the Fayum, and her surface
collecting activities in Helwan (5.5.4 below). Early Sudan is not as well represented,
and only 121 objects are definitely attributable to this region, primarily to Mesolithic
Khartoum: but this is a notable collection nonetheless.
While in many museums newly-discovered prehistoric artefacts were used in the
early 20th century to extend existing displays so that they encompassed the newly
identified early periods of the Egyptian past, at the PRM these accessions reflected
the general concern with early technologies. This is seen in the high number of stone
tools and organic specimens as opposed to type-series of objects. There are roughly
2,800 chipped stone tools – a field relatively little studied by Egyptologists – whilst
pottery is relatively under-represented in the PRM: forming only 5.6% (198 objects)
of the Egyptian and Sudanese archaeological collections, in comparison to roughly
300 objects that are described in the PRM database as a ‘specimen’, which include
pigments and resins, as well as samples of hair, basketry, leather and textiles.
This chapter considers material from Egypt and Sudan which dates from after the
Palaeolithic, and before the Old Kingdom Dynastic Period: this sequence runs from c.
7000 to c. 2600 BCE, and comprises the Mesolithic (c. 7000–5500 BCE), Neolithic (c.
5500–4000 BCE), Predynastic (c. 4000–3100 BCE) and Early Dynastic (c. 3100–2575
BCE, formerly referred to by some as the ‘Archaic Period’) Periods (Table 5.3).4 For
4
In comparison with the Predynastic, the Neolithic of Egypt is very poorly documented and is better
known in the southern part of the Nile Valley: Sudan and the Western Deserts. In Egypt itself it was first
defined, and is still best known, by Caton-Thompson’s (1934) work in the Fayum. Arkell’s (1949) work
in the Sudan found much earlier evidence at Khartoum for pottery making communities. Despite the
presence of pottery, however, the groups at Early Khartoum showed no evidence for domestication and as
such are referred to in the literature as being part of the Khartoum Mesolithic. Radiocarbon dates provided
by Hassan suggest that the Khartoum Mesolithic dates from roughly 7500 BCE to 6500 BCE (Hassan
1986: 88), although it has been suggested that it was particularly long-lived tradition that persisted until the
fifth millennium BCE (Fuller and Smith 2004: 268–269). The Neolithic in Egypt is generally viewed to date
to the fifth millennium BCE, the oldest sites dating to about 5230 ± 50 cal BCE, and the youngest c.4000
cal BCE (Hassan 1985: 106), although see Kobusiewicz et al. (2004).
Table 5.3 Archaeological Phase Description cal. BCE

periods for Predynastic Naqada IIIC1 Early Dynastic Period (Dynasties 1–3) c.3100–2575
and Early Dynastic
Naqada IIIA1–IIIB Late Predynastic (Protodynastic/ Dynasty ‘0’) c.3350–3100
Egypt, with calibrated
Naqada IIC–IID2 Middle Predynastic (Gerzean) c.3600–3350
dates BCE (adapted from
Naqada IA–IIB Early Predynastic (Amratian) c.4000/3900–3600
Hendrickx 2006: 92,
Badarian Badarian c.4500–4000
table II.1.7).
the purposes of this study, the Early Dynastic Period is defined as ending with the
beginning of the Fourth Dynasty, when the Old Kingdom Period commences (see
Chapter 6).5
5.4 History and Background to the Mesolithic, Neolithic, Predynastic and

Early Dynastic Collections
The PRM founding collection contains only a single object that can be attributed to
early Egypt or Sudan – an Early Dynastic Egyptian flint knife, which was described
and illustrated by Pitt-Rivers in his 1882 paper on Palaeolithic artefacts from the Nile
Valley (1884.140.82) (Pitt-Rivers 1882: 386–7, Fig. 14). A second item from the PRM
founding collection – an undated flint bracelet (1884.140.83) – was also published
in that paper. However, in 1892 a set of seven Neolithic stone tools (1892.27.1–7)
was donated by the prolific antiquary, collector and dealer George Fabian Lawrence
(1861–1939). At the time of donation, however, the age of such Neolithic material
was unknown, and up until 1899 most of the items dateable to early Egypt were stone
tools dated to the Predynastic period.6
The fact that stone tools were the only kind of artefact from the Mesolithic,
Neolithic, Predynastic or Early Dynastic periods up to 1899 can in part be attributed
to the interests of the Curator of the PRM, Henry Balfour, who was an enthusiastic
collector of stone tools (Gosden and Larson 2007: 96), and also to the development
under the Keepership of Arthur Evans, from 1884 to 1908, of the Ashmolean
Museum’s archaeological and numismatic collections from Egypt (Whitehouse 2008:
xiv). Notably, this included Flinders Petrie’s donation of large stone anthropomorphic
statues known as the Koptos Colossi in 1894 (after their rejection by the British
Museum) and a type-series of objects from the cemetery of Naqada. This was the
basis on which the Ashmolean Museum, in Petrie’s opinion, ‘will be, for the future,
the essential place for the study of this period’ (Petrie and Quibell 1896: x).7 The
PRM, on the other hand, rarely received any donations directly from Petrie himself
and the objects that were received from his excavations (e.g. Abydos) were through
the EEF or BSAE Committees.
5
Many authors (e.g. Shaw 2000) would include the Third Dynasty in the Old Kingdom (often referred to
as the ‘Pyramid Age’) as it was during this Dynasty that the first pyramids were constructed, but others (e.g.
Wilkinson 1999) situate it within the Early Dynastic period as it shares many features with its antecedents.
For the current study, the Early Dynastic period is considered to encompass the first three dynasties.
This is as much for practical convenience as scholarly abstraction as the Third-Dynasty material in the
PRM derives from John Garstang’s season at Bet Khallaf, where a series of mastabas of Second and Third
Dynasty date were located. This was the same season from which the largest part of the Predynastic
collection comes and is thus included in the discussion related to that.
6
Including a fish-tailed knife from the ERA work at Hierakonpolis (1898.37.6) and 16 stone implements
from his (Petrie 1901b) EEF sponsored work at Diospolis Parva (1899.33.1–16). A ground stone bracelet
also from this season of work was accessioned the following year (1900.42.14).
7
Petrie was referring to the ‘New Race’ period, which he originally identified as occurring at the end of the
Old Kingdom. It was only later that he accepted such material as ‘Predynastic’ (Petrie 1901b).
The expansion of the early Egyptian archaeological collections at the PRM from
1899–1900 derived from the activities of David Randall-MacIver, who was at that
time the Laycott student of Egyptology at Worcester College, Oxford and who had
been particularly inspired by E.B. Tylor’s anthropology whilst an undergraduate at
The Queen’s College (Ridgeway 1983: 360). As he recounted in an autobiographical
note, it
‘was a fortunate moment at which I entered this particular period of Egyptian
archaeology. The time dating and character of the pred-dyn and pro-dyn had just
been brilliantly diagnosed by De Morgan… The subject was now foremost in the
mind of every student of Egypt and the Near East.’ 8
Randall-MacIver’s first visit to Egypt was in 1898 to work with Petrie at Dendereh,
where he bought 2 Predynastic flint saws (1899.43.2–3) and 6 flint blades said to be
from Naqada (1899.43.25–30), all of which he presented to the PRM. The following
year he donated 20 Neolithic hollow-based arrow-heads and 6 flint flakes from the
Fayum (1900.15.1–26), 7 Predynastic White Cross-lined (C-Ware) pottery vessels
(1900.38.102–109) and 3 stone maceheads (1900.38.110–112), all of which were
again purchased from dealers.
Randall-MacIver’s largest single donation, however, was the material from his
excavations at el-Amrah on behalf of the EEF in 1901 (5.5.1 below). This was also
the year that the PRM acquired two other key collections: material from the royal
tombs at Abydos (5.5.2 below) and a Predynastic settlement at el-Mahasna (5.5.3
below). Notably, Balfour was the stone tool expert consulted for all three of the
excavation reports associated with these accessions, and this probably accounts for
the considerable amount of Predynastic and Early Dynastic material donated in this
year. Moreover the field directors at el-Amrah and Mahasna had both studied at
Oxford and were thus predisposed to donating material to an institution they were
most likely very familiar with.
After 1901, Randall-MacIver maintained his relationship with the PRM, and he
sent ethnographic material purchased in local markets in Aswan in 1902 and Zanzibar
in 1905. He had a particular interest in pottery production in Egypt and Sudan
(Randall-MacIver 1905). Whilst working on the Nubian rescue campaigns in Sudan,
he returned to thinking about the Predynastic period, particularly with regard to the
striking black-topped pottery which continued to be manufactured in Nubia beyond
the Early Dynastic Period in Egypt. These interests may explain his donation of 9
black-topped pottery vessels to the PRM in 1907 (1907.48.1–9), which are noted
in the accession book to have been ‘made in imitation of Predynastic Egyptian
pots, to discover methods of manufacture. Made by H.C. Mercer of Doylestown,
Pennsylvania, 1907’.9 This accession is of interest in the history of archaeology since
the earliest study of black-topped pottery manufacture has often been considered
(e.g. Baba and Saito 2004: 576) to be by A. Lucas (1929; 1932), but Randall-MacIver’s
investigations were actually published earlier (Randall-MacIver and Woolley 1909:
17–18). It is notable that Randall-MacIver also had four of the white cross-lined
pottery bowls that he purchased and presented to the PRM in 1900 examined for their
pigment composition. Later in life he advocated the importance of archaeologists
obtaining practical experience of craftwork (Randall-MacIver 1932: 464) and this
interest in technology probably owes much to his interactions with the PRM.
8
Unpublished autobiographical note written by Randall-MacIver in 1942, Queen’s College Library,
Oxford/MS 541.
9
H.C. Mercer was a friend of Randall-MacIver’s who he met when at the University of Pennsylvania
Museum. Mercer later went on to found a pottery workshop in Philadelphia (Reed 1987).
Other than Randall-MacIver’s donation, the material received by the PRM from
excavations up until the Second World War was largely through the BSAE rather than
the EEF, principally because Henry Balfour was a member of the BSAE Committee.
Thus the BSAE excavations at Gerzeh (Wainwright 1911), Tarkhan (Petrie et al. 1912;
1913), Badari10 and Qau (Brunton and Caton-Thompson 1928), and the First-Dynasty
‘tombs of the courtiers’ at Abydos (Petrie 1925)11 are represented in the PRM’s
collection, but not to the extent as the aforementioned sites of el-Amrah, Umm
el-Qa’ab at Abydos or Mahasna. No one artefact stands out in these assemblages as
unique in comparison to other museum assemblages.
There were also sporadic donations from private collectors during this time
whose assemblages typify popular tastes in the acquisition of ‘Predynastic art’, and
as ‘choice’ artefacts these tend to be those chosen for display in the PRM’s galleries.
This includes 3 black-topped pottery vessels donated in 1928,12 a double ceramic
vessel decorated with spirals, typical of Naqada IIC–D, presented in 1925,13 and a
fish-shaped palette donated in 1929.14
More significant, from the point of view of the history of Egyptian archaeology,
are the donations of material from two areas that were the basis for recognising the
earlier Neolithic and Mesolithic in the Nile Valley; Getrude Caton-Thompson’s work
in the Fayum (Caton-Thompson and Gardner 1934) and Arkell’s (1949) excavations
in Khartoum respectively. Gertrude Caton-Thompson had been involved with the
1920s BSAE excavations in the Badari region, which had extended Petrie’s Predynastic
sequence further back to the Badarian, but it was her own work in the Fayum that
established the presence of an even earlier Neolithic in Egypt for the first time. This
work is represented in the PRM by around 63 objects (5.5.4 below), together with
material acquired from the same season from her excavations in the Early Dynastic
quarries of Umm es-Sawan (Caton-Thompson and Gardner 1934) (5.5.5 below). The
work of Anthony Arkell was just as significant as Caton-Thompson’s in identifying
prehistoric sites: principally sites from the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods of the
Sudanese Nile Valley. At the Khartoum Hospital site in 1944, which was the first
excavation of the Sudan Antiquities Service, Arkell (1949) identified a hunting and
fishing society that produced microlithic tools and distinctive wavy-line pottery. On
the basis of the latter Arkell coined the term ‘Wavy Lined Culture’, now generally
referred to as the Khartoum Mesolithic or Early Khartoum. The PRM received just
over 100 objects from Arkell’s work at the Khartoum Hospital site (5.5.6 below).
5.5 Significant Collections (Mesolithic–Early Dynastic Periods)

5.5.1 The Predynastic Cemetery of el-Amrah
The Predynastic Period in Egypt is most visible archaeologically through its cemetery
remains, and an estimated 15,000 graves have been excavated across Egypt (Hendrickx
and van den Brink 2002) (Figure 5.5). Thus most assemblages of Predynastic material,
where the provenance is known, are from such prehistoric necropolises. A list of all
10
Including 1924.35.1, a Second-Dynasty copper ‘flaying knife’. Examined and photographed in Coghlan
(1951: 144, plate X).
11
These 8 vessels were transferred from the University of Oxford Department of Human Anatomy in
1946 (1946.5.5–12). They are all First-Dynasty pottery vessels from the tombs that surround the First-
Dynasty royal enclosures at Abydos and the tomb numbers are written on the objects (tombs 272, 328,
403, 433, 501 and 539).
12
1928.40.1–3 bought at the Stevens Auction Rooms lot 560 on 12 December 1928 by Alfred Walter
Francis Fuller.
13
1925.16.16 donated by Miss G. Verney.
14
1929.91.1 donated by James Thomas Hooper.
Figure 5.5 Drawing

of a Predynastic burial
from el-Amrah, Upper
Egypt (Randall-MacIver
and Mace 1901: pl. V).
The clay model cattle
are now in the British
Museum (MacGregor
2010: 43–8), but the
C-ware bowl is in the Pitt
Rivers Museum (PRM
Accession Number
1901.29.78).
known cemeteries excavated for this period is provided in Hendrickx and van den
Brink (2002) and of these the PRM has only a handful of artefacts from a few of
the sites:15 1 fish-tailed knife from a cemetery at Hierakonpolis (1898.37.6);16 16 stone
tools from Diospolis Parva (1899.33.1–1899.33.16); 3 flints from Abydos cemeteries
G (1900.42.1–2; Petrie 1902: 34–5) and X (1900.42.7; Randall-MacIver and Mace
1902: 53–55); 9 flints from Gerzeh (1911.33.1; Wainwright 1911; Stevenson 2009);
1 flint knife and 1 flint armlet from Tarkhan (1912.32.1–2; Petrie et al. 1912); and
27 flints (1923.32.1–20, 1923.32.23, 1923.32.29), 1 macehead (1923.42.31), 1 palette
plus rubbing stone (1923.43.36–37), 3 copper needles/pins (1923.43.55–57), 1
ripple-decorated Badarian pottery sherd (1923.43.55) and 3 ornaments from Qau
(1923.43.39–40, 1923.43.59; Brunton and Caton-Thompson 1928).
In comparison, only the Predynastic cemetery of el-Amrah is well represented in
the PRM collections, with 403 objects.17 The el-Amrah assemblage (all prefixed with
the accession number 1901.29) is the most diverse of all the early Egypt collections
in the PRM, including pottery, mudstone (greywacke) palettes, basketry, minerals,
fragments of matting and leather, stone tools, beads, copper implements, ivory
ornaments and animal mud figures. The only class of relatively common grave good
that is absent are vessels made of stone.
15
Although there are 8 objects listed as being from Naqada, none are securely provenanced: samples of
hair said to be from Naqada were found in the PRM collection in 1945 (1945.10.126), 6 were bought by
David Randall-MacIver in Coptos, although said to be from Naqada (1899.43.25–30) and 1 perforated
piece of stone donated by Francis Fox Tuckett is only ‘said to be from Nagada’, according to the accession
records (1898.27.1).
16
A tubular spiral faience bead was donated by Brenda Seligman in 1946 (1946.8.106) possibly from the
Main Deposit at Hierakonpolis.
17
A total that far exceeds that sent to the Asmolean Museum, which only received 48 objects (Payne 1993).
David Randall-MacIver and Anthony Wilkin excavated the site of el-Amrah

between December 1900 and February 1901 on behalf of the EEF (MacIver and
Mace 1902). The site had been targeted prior to this by the Frenchmen Jacques de
Morgan and Émile Amelineau, but they ‘had been more attracted by the numerous
graves of the XIIth and XVIIIth Dynasties than by those of the pre-dynastic and
proto-dynastic period’ (Randall-MacIver and Mace 1902: 2), which Randall-MacIver
and Wilkin chose to concentrate on. They divided the site into cemeteries a and
b, but in reality both were part of one large Predynastic necropolis into which
Eighteenth-Dynasty burials had intruded thus splitting the earlier contexts into two
areas separated by only 250 yards.18
Only 156 of an estimated 800 graves from el-Amrah were published, because
the ‘quantity of small material is so great that the cost of figuring it would be
excessive, while the repetition of identical illustrations in several memoirs would
in any case be irksome, if not misleading’ (Randall-MacIver and Mace 1902: 6).
Reference was therefore made to Petrie’s Naqada and Ballas volume (Petrie and
Quibell 1896), in which ‘were figured all the characteristic products of the period’
(Randall-MacIver and Mace 1902: 6). Whilst the definition of cultural types in this
manner was a preoccupation of the early 20th century, one hundred years later it is
the nature of regional identities and local variations that has become of particular
interest to Egyptologists (e.g. Baines 1996; Seidlmayer 1990). Consequently, detailed
examination of all objects from a site can provide evidence of idiosyncrasies and
patterns related to community and regional identities overlooked previously. The
distribution of material, according the EES distribution list, was extensive with at
least twenty museums receiving artefacts from the season’s work and it is clear from
the objects in the PRM that most were labelled with the number of the tomb from
which they came. This wide museum distribution of provenanced material means
that there exists the opportunity to reunite objects and document through museum
research unpublished tomb contents as a basis for the reinterpretation of the site
with reference to more current debates.
From the tomb numbers noted on the objects it is also evident that tomb assemblages
were rarely kept together. For instance, there are nine graves in the PRM collection that
are also represented by objects in the Ashmolean Museum (Payne 1993).19 Some groups
of objects in the PRM, however, were retained as coherent assemblages, such as ‘the
remarkable outfit of small objects of personal use’ (Randall-MacIver and Mace 1902:
26; cf. ibid.: 16, plate vii, 2) found in grave a88 (1901.29.25–38).
There are a total 56 complete pottery vessels and 5 pottery sherds in the PRM
from Amrah, which seems to be the largest set in the division of pottery from the
site according to the unpublished distribution list currently held in the EES office
in London. This assemblage includes most of the key types of pottery from this
period as classified by Petrie (1896, 1901, 1921).20 Such objects can be diagnostic
for constructing relative chronologies (Hendrickx 2006), whilst the D-ware (Figure
5.6) and C-ware (Figure 5.7) are popular research subjects frequently requested to be
viewed by researchers. The C-ware from el-Amrah is of particular interest as such
objects have been considered to be iconographically unique (Finkenstaedt 1980).
There are also significant amounts of organic materials, and crucially a large
number have tomb numbers associated with them. This includes the remains of 3
18
The site was later used as the type-site for Petrie’s ‘Amratian’ culture, a term that is no longer used as
a group identification, but remains in the literature as a chronological reference to the earlier part of the
Predynastic, equivalent to the period between Naqada I and early Naqada II.
19
Graves a41, 156, 174, a90, a96, a131, b62, b102B, and b136.
20
13 black-topped (B-ware), 9 polished (P-ware), 6 rough (R-ware), 3 wavy-handled (W-ware), 8 decorated
(D-Ware), 5 cross-lined (C-ware) and 4 late (L-ware) ceramic vessels.
baskets (1901.29.138–9), fragments of cord (1901.29.127), reed mat work samples

(1901.29.140–141), 8 specimens of leather and skins (1901.29.138), more than
7 pieces of wood showing carved lines (1901.29.128–129), 3 pear-shaped clay
objects embedded with plant fragments (1901.29.97–99) and 16 ivory ornaments.21
These – particularly the short-lived plant materials – are valuable resources for
modern radiocarbon dating techniques (Dee et al. 2008; Rowland 2008).22 There are
additionally several accessions of mineral samples, including what has been identified
as bitumen (1901.29.135, 2005.60.1), as well as red pigment (1901.29.136) that may be
valuable as reference samples for residue analysis. The resins in particular may be of
interest since these are likely to be imported goods, although their origins and uses in
Predynastic Egypt are unclear and require further study (Serpico 2000: 430).
Despite this diversity, the collection from el-Amrah is still dominated by stone
tools. Often museum collections of Predynastic stone tools are based on objects
that were popular with collectors, such as ripple-flaked knives. For instance, of all 11
ripple-flaked knives held in the PRM collection, 7 were purchased from dealers or
collectors.23 What makes the el-Amrah material more significant is that it encompasses
not just the usual museum accessions ‘because ulterior questions of great interest
are involved in the dating of the roughly-worked implements’ (Randall-MacIver and
Mace 1901: 44). Consequently, Henry Balfour ‘examined the entire series’ (ibid.)
and there are around 150 implements from the graves and fillings, many of which
have yet to be individually numbered and documented.24 A further 62 flints collected
from the surface of the site have been identified as Palaeolithic (Milliken 2003: 183–
91). The ‘rough’ nature of many of these pieces suggests certain biases in other
early collections from excavations that the material in the PRM has the potential to
counterbalance.
5.5.2 First-Dynasty Royal Tombs at Abydos
Randall-MacIver was also a member of Petrie’s team that worked in the area of
Abydos known as the Umm el-Qa’ab, the site of the royal burials of the First and latter
part of the Second Dynasty. It was possibly through his personal recommendation
that the PRM received a substantial quantity of material from Petrie’s (1902) second
season at the site.
All eight rulers of the First Dynasty and the last two kings of the Second Dynasty
were interred at Abydos (see Table 5.3). Petrie’s work at the site between 1899 and
1903 followed on from the heavily-criticized digging of the area by Amelineau who
allegedly ‘reduced to smithereens’ (Petrie 1901a: 2) all he did not take. Petrie’s more
thorough working of the site, however, recovered such fragments and crucially the
serekhs inscribed upon them (e.g. Figure 5.8) within which early ruler’s names were
written. These allowed Petrie to date each of the royal burials relative to each other
and build up the complete sequence of the First Dynasty from archaeological
evidence for the first time.
The quantity of material from this site in the PRM, some 500 Early Dynastic
Period items, is still relatively modest in comparison to the collection at the Ashmolean
21
Combs 1901.29.1 and 1901.29.107; tags 1901.29.2, 1901.29.29–38; bracelet 1901.29.106.
22
A New Chronology for the Formation of the Egyptian State, funded by the Leverhulme Trust (2010–2013),
http://c14.arch.ox.ac.uk/embed.php?File=egypt2.html.
23
e.g. 1900.42.2 bought and donated by Randall-MacIver; 1934.57.41 bought and donated by Edward
Evans-Prichard; 1924.69.26 purchased from Sotheby’s (formerly Knowles collection); 1925.56.1 purchased
from S.G. Fenton and company; 1926.73.2 collected by R.G. Gayer-Anderson; 1926.79.2 collected by
Mohareb Todrous (a dealer in Luxor); 1925.75.1 collected by E.C. Mills.
24
Including the assemblage photographed in the excavation report (Randall-MacIver and Mace 1902: plate
VII, numbers 4 and 6).
Figure 5.6 Painted

Predynastic pottery vessel
(D-ware) used to furnish
el-Amrah grave B 37,
Egypt (PRM Accession
Number 1901.29.74).
Figure 5.7 Painted

Predynastic pottery bowl
(C-ware) used to furnish
el-Amrah grave B 161,
Egypt (PRM Accession
Number 1901.29.94)
showing a net pattern and
three representations of
cattle on the interior.
Museum, which also includes a far broader range of material. The PRM items are
largely implements of flint, ivory, bone or wood, and there are only 8 fragments
(1901.40.34–38, 1925.32.8–10)25 of the thousands of stone vessels found at the site
that are otherwise frequently encountered in museum collections (Hendrickx et al.
2001). Of the other materials the only unique item in the collection, according to the
EES distribution lists, is the sample of leather (1901.40.60 .2), although there is no
firm basis on which to assert that this is Early Dynastic in date. The PRM does have
a large number of organic specimens from the site relative to other museums, such
as resin (1901.40.61 .1–28), ivory and worked wood26 including 55 wood, bone and
ivory arrow-heads and their associated reed shafts, which on typological grounds are
of First-Dynasty date. Thus, like the material from el-Amrah, the collection is suited
to absolute dating techniques and other organic chemistry investigations. Indeed
samples from the reed shafts have recently been taken as part of the New Chronology
for the Formation of the Egyptian State project,27 which is at the time of writing still
ongoing.
A secure chronological context cannot be claimed for all the material because of
the complex nature of the site’s life-history. A case in point is the large quantity of
hair in the PRM collection (1901.40.78 .1–2, 1901.40.52 .1–5, 1901.40.53–55), which
is not mentioned in the excavation report or in the distribution lists. Such quantities
of hair, some of which was elaborately curled and possibly formed part of wigs,
were noted by Amelineau in his work at the site prior to Petrie’s (Amelineau 1904:
78, 455, 477). Museum documentation is limited, but at some point in the PRM’s
history they were attributed to the Early Dynastic period, although others have
preferred to regard them as later votive deposits (Fletcher 2003: 100–101). Recent
re-excavation of the site, however, by the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo
(DAI) has recovered similar hair deposits from the First-Dynasty retainer burials (G.
Dreyer pers. comm.) and this provides collaborative evidence for the early dating
of the PRM examples, also known in the collections in Brussels and Berlin. Recent
radiocarbon dating of these samples confirms an Early Dynastic dating (Mike Dee
pers. comm.). The amount of hair from the site in the PRM is considerable and they
thus provide a good resource for other forms of scientific sampling. In particular
it could be valuable for isotopic analysis with a view to investigations of diet and
seasonality (Peter Ditchfield, pers. comm.), as it has been suggested on the basis of
the skeletal remains that there were health differences between those buried around
the royal burials and those buried around the associated First-Dynasty enclosures also
at Abydos (Keita and Boyce 2006), a theory which might be explored further with
reference to dietary differences.
Less easy to ascertain a date for are the specimens of resin and pigments, which
whilst all categorized as Early Dynastic in the database may be later as their context
within the royal complex is unknown. There are samples of textiles (e.g. 1901.40.64),
for instance, that are stated to be Early Dynastic, but this seems unlikely.
The strength of the PRM collection from the area of the Umm el-Qa’ab at
Abydos lies in the large sample of material from the tomb of Djer. Unfortunately,
Petrie’s brief report of the site did not distinguish in a clear manner those objects
25
These later objects are noted in the accession book to be ‘from Royal tombs of I and II dynasties,
Abydos’ and these were donated in 1925 by Balfour’s Assistant Curator Ernest Seymour Thomas.
26
1901.40.57.1–3, ‘ten pieces of carved wood-work burnt, some have signs of carving’, 1901.40.58 ‘pieces
of wood-work’. Several items are listed in Killen (1994); 1901.40.74 wood with square groove, 1901.40.57
‘furniture fragments partly calcined, wood and ivory’, 1901.40.93 ‘fragment of carved bull’s leg with scroll
ornament’, 1901.40.46 ‘oblong piece of ivory (part of box?)’, 1901.40.136 ‘carved furniture fragments
ivory’, 1901.40.58 ‘furniture fragment shaped and bored, ivory’.
27
http://c14.arch.ox.ac.uk/embed.php?File=egypt2.html Accessed 14 February 2012.
Figure 5.8 Model ivory

flake from the tomb of the
First Dynasty Egyptian
king Aha at Abydos,
Egypt with the name of
the king inscribed at the
tip in a serekh (PRM
Accession Number
1901.40.5 .2).
Figure 5.9 Fragments from the burial chamber and those that were found in the subsidiary burials. Djer’s
of a horn bow from the tomb was surrounded by the largest number of retainers – 318 in total – and this
tomb of the First Dynasty may, in part, explain the higher number of artefacts associated with this tomb in the
Egyptian king Djer PRM. It is also the case that the unusual nature of the stone implements and the
(PRM Accession Numbers PRM’s speciality in this area may have led to a specific concession of chipped-stone
1901.40.43.1–5). tools. The diversity of materials used stone implements in the tomb is striking in
comparison to the other royal complexes and the current excavators of the site have
also noted this (Vera Müller, pers. comm.). Petrie’s volumes were all in black and white
providing no indication of the range of the assemblage, but it is clear from the PRM
sample that there was a deliberate eclectism and aesthetic choice in the stone selected
for these assemblages. Whilst some of the unusual colourings are a product of the
fire that destroyed the burial chamber in antiquity, not all are so explained. Collections
such as this thus provide the opportunity to document the diversity of resources
exploited in early Egypt and raise questions about material provenance for such flints,
which is an area that has not been systematically investigated as yet for Egypt. In this
respect the very large number of flint tools in the early Egypt collection, generally,
may form an excellent reference collection for any future provenance studies of flint.
It also highlights the value of old excavated collections for providing a material basis
on which issues such as the archaeology of aesthetics may be addressed.
The collection also includes ivory and wooden arrow-heads together with their
reed shafts,28 which were prevalent at the site, some with the tips stained with red iron
oxide.29 The PRM selection probably includes bone and ebony, as well as ivory of
various descriptions. Again a proper examination to determine the precise materials
would be a useful exercise not just from a documentation point of view, but also
as a way to qualify the nature of elite appropriation and exploitation of a range
of resources as part of their political, ideological and political strategy during the
consolidation of the early Egyptian state. For example, analysis of one of the First-
Dynasty wooden arrows in the Ashmolean Museum revealed it to be a species of pine
not native to Egypt (Western and McLeod 1995: 93): an observation that has yet to
be qualified by a wider ranging account of the scope of materials recovered from the
early royal tombs. The Royal Museums of Art and History (RMAH) in Brussels have
begun a project to catalogue their large collection of material from the site, which
may expand to include other collections (Bielen 2004: 634). The site is also being re-
excavated currently by the German Archaeological Institute. The PRM’s collections
can thus contribute to these international efforts to understand the site.
Finally, special mention should also be made here of the oryx horn and wooden
bow fragments from the tombs of Djer (1901.40.43 .1–5; Petrie 1901a, pl:VII; Figure
5.9) and Den (1901.40.80–83) as despite the relative frequency of their depiction
in Late Predynastic art, there are very few examples of such bows known in early
Egyptian contexts (Gilbert 2004: 45). One of the few other ones known is a fragment
from Tarkhan tomb 22 dated to the First Dynasty (Keimer 1936; Petrie et al. 1913:
VII, 1). J.G.D Clarke et al. (1974: 342) singled out the PRM bow fragments from
Abydos in his analysis of Egyptian bows and arrows as the subject of a separate
study, although it appears that none was ever published. The whereabouts of the
Tarkhan fragment are unknown, but another bow from the Abydos royal tombs is
accessioned into the Berlin Museum (Accession Number 18041; Gilbert 2004: 189)
although it seemingly lacks the contextual association with a specific tomb. A more
complete example is in Cairo Museum (Accession Number JE 34981) (Petrie 1901a:
plate XXVI, A).
5.5.3 The Settlement Site of el-Mahasna
The site of Mahasna, discovered by John Garstang at the beginning of the 20th century,
was one of the first Predynastic settlements in Egypt to be excavated and reported
(Garstang 1903). Garstang had been a Mathematics student at Jesus College, Oxford,
from 1895 to 1899. His account of the work at the Mahasna settlement was brief, taking
28
1901.40.22, 1901.40.42 (29 examples), 1901.40.49 .1–13, 1901.40.67–69, 1901.40.84–88, 1901.40.94–97,
1901.40.42 .30–36.
29
Petrie speculated that this might be poison or a form of sympathetic magic (Petrie 1901a: 34–35; see also
Clarke et al. 1974; Teeter 2011, 240).
up only three pages of the Egyptian Research Account’s memoir, and the site has been
largely overlooked in accounts of Predynastic Egypt. This might not just be due to
the limited nature of the official report and the lack of archives associated with this
excavation, but also because its surviving collections are not very visible in museums.
Indeed, until this project the size of the Mahasna material was underestimated as
indicated in a letter, dated 12 July 1963, from the Assistant Secretary of PRM, A.Q.
Butler, to the Head of the Liverpool School of Archaeology and Oriental Studies, now
in the archives of the School of Classics, Archaeology and Egyptology, University of
Liverpool (Patricia Winker, pers. comm.):
‘Mr Penniman has asked me to write and thank you for your enquiry of 13 June 1963.
They have a lot of Egyptian material but only a few from Garstang 1901–2 season.’
The only manuscript associated with the site is an unpublished distribution list in the
Petrie Museum,30 which in addition to the PRM, lists twenty other destinations for
the objects retrieved during that season (which also included work at Abydos and
Bet Khallaf). Having consulted the catalogues, online databases and the curators of
institutions associated with the cities mentioned on the distribution list, it is clear
that the Predynastic settlement of Mahasna is represented in only a few museum
collections, with the PRM possessing the largest amount of material by far with over
1,600 artefacts (primarily flint tools).31
Mahasna is located approximately 10.5 km north of Abydos and has been more
recently re-excavated as part of the University of Pennsylvania-Yale University and the
Institute of Fine Arts, New York Expedition to Abydos (Anderson 2006). The latter’s
work has re-located Garstang’s concession and dated the ancient activity at the site
between Naqada I and IID. In his report Garstang identified two separate settlement
areas, S1 and S2, based on the concentration of worked flints and pottery in these
areas. They were separated by zones of much lower surface densities of Predynastic
artefacts, together with lighter coloured silts and sands, but were probably part of one
site. Area S2 revealed structural remains of possible wattle-and-daub constructions,
whilst the excavation of area S1 uncovered less definite remains.
The large number of chipped-stone tools from Mahasna in the PRM was
unexpected, as the initial overview of the collection based upon the database and
accession records suggested that there were only several dozen flint tools. Yet in
the PRM Stone Tool store an estimated 1,500 flint implements, all un-numbered,
from both areas S1 and S2 were discovered. Therefore, the PRM’s assemblage
may represent one of the largest collections of stone tools in a museum from any
Predynastic Egyptian site known and may be the subject of renewed international
interest given the site’s current re-excavation.
Very few studies of lithics from settlement contexts have been conducted, and
the work of Diane Holmes (1989) on the Predynastic settlement flints from Badari,
Hierakonpolis and Naqada is one of the most important studies thus far published.
It demonstrated that the range of stone tools was far wider than what had been
selected to be placed in Predynastic burials and was far more eclectic than early
excavators allusions to ‘flake scatters’ in settlement areas indicated. Yet the number
of objects available to Holmes in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology was
small; around 334 lithics from Hemamieh and about 45 from Badari. She noted on
30
PMA/WFP1 115/10/1(9)
31
The Asmolean Museum has 11 objects (Payne 1993), the Manchester Museum has 27, the University
of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has 131 pieces and the Oriental Institute in
Chicago has 63 items (David Anderson, pers. comm.), although the latter are largely surface collections
made by Seton-Karr who may have visited the site during its excavation.
the basis of these collections that the early selection of lithic tools for museums was
problematic, with diagnostic pieces being the favoured museum requisition. Thus
whilst Petrie brought home most of the material from cemeteries, Holmes’ research
demonstrated was not the case for the settlements (Holmes 1989). In comparison
it is clear that the PRM has a huge variety of tools and it is likely to be a fairly
representative sample. For instance, Holmes (1989: 36–37) notes that it was usual
for collectors to retrieve more ‘attractive’ specimens, but they almost never collected
retouched flakes, notches, denticulates, cores, circular scrapers or end-scrapers. An
initial overview of the PRM’s material reveals that all these types of implements are
present, with retouched flint flakes being very common, and several denticulates,
circular scrapers and end-scrapers were observed. The collection has yet to be
individually catalogued and clearly there is scope for a detailed investigation of the
nature of the assemblage. It is possible that this is one of the few representative
samples of Predynastic settlement lithic technology outside Egypt (cf. Holmes 1989)
and thus it has significant potential not only as a teaching and reference collection,
but also for new research on the nature and role of lithic technology in daily life of
Predynastic Egyptians.
In addition to the stone tools, other material from the site includes 13 pottery
and stone spindle whorls (1901.42.145–157), 4 pottery sherds (1901.42.162–165),
a ‘stingray’ spine (1901.42.159), an ivory comb (1901.42.135), 7 small pottery urns
(1901.42.138–144), 3 fragments of palettes,32 and a large (62 cm) intact storage jar
with the image of a giraffe incised upon it (1901.42.166; Garstang 1903: plate IV).
Notable are the unusual pebbles and flints from two distinct deposits, most of which
were not mentioned in the excavation report, but which form striking assemblages
(1901.42.1–30). The accumulation of such unusually-shaped, coloured and textured
stones is also known to be an aspect of Early Dynastic temple deposits such as at Tell
Ibrahim Awad (van Haarlem 1995; 1996) and Elephantine (Dreyer 1986: 96–97, 153,
Tafel 57), but these rarely receive detailed attention because they are associated with
other carved votive objects.
In the same season Garstang also excavated six Third-Dynasty mud-brick
mastabas (tombs) at Bet Khallaf, the largest of which was K1, dating to the reign
of King Netjerikhet (Djoser). The PRM possesses a number of flint tools from a
surface collection around K1, mostly Palaeolithic (Milliken 2003: 179), but there are
also 10 crescent-shaped flint tools collected from the vicinity of K1 (1901.42.56–65;
Garstang 1903: plate XV), as well as 18 Third-Dynasty copper tools (1901.42.115
(8 objects), 1901.42.116, 1901.42.118–123, 1901.42.168–169) from the K1 mastaba
itself. Similar copper implements are on display in the Ashmolean Museum as well as
several other museums, including the British Museum, the University of Cambridge
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and the Manchester Museum.
5.5.4 Neolithic Egypt
The PRM had received stone tools that are most likely to be Neolithic in date prior to
Caton-Thompson’s pioneering work in the Fayum, but they were not recognized as
such and very few are provenanced precisely. For example, there is a poorly understood
stone tool assemblage from the Eastern Desert and the Fayum donated by Seton-
Kerr33 and a collection of stone implements from the Libyan Desert accumulated
32
1901.43.124, 125 and 131. In the accession book there are two separate notes both listing ‘10 fragments of
palettes, s.1’ although only 10 have been found in the PRM and it is possible that the set was mistakenly counted
twice and there are only 10. Of these 10 only 5 are of mudstone (greywacke) material so distinctively used for these
artefacts and only 3 flat enough to be palettes. The rest are simply rough stones and cannot be considered palettes.
33
A total of 469 stone tools from Egypt said to have been collected by Captain Seton-Karr (1859–1938)
and donated by Charles Trick Currely in 1924 (1924.40.42, 1924.40.46–64), both of

which require definition by a stone tool expert, but Sarah Milliken commented in her
analysis of the Egyptian stone tools that these were possibly Neolithic.
The PRM holds 63 stone tools that derive from Caton-Thompson’s 1927–1928
season in the Fayum (1928.42.47–113), which were considered ‘more noteworthy
accessions to the Museum collections’ in the PRM 1928 annual report. Her excavations
recovered a series of small camps along the ancient lakeshore and which were the
basis for her Fayum A culture. To date the area still represents the best record of the
Neolithic in Egypt, with the earliest known evidence for agriculture, and has been re-
investigated several times (Ginter and Kozlowski 1983; Holdaway et al. 2010; Wendorf
and Schild 1976; Wendrich and Cappers 2005). Thirty-one museums received material
from Caton-Thompson’s excavation (Caton-Thompson and Gardner 1934: xiv) and
whilst some of these institutions received coherent assemblages, the material in the
PRM, from the associated numbers on some of the artefacts, appears to derive from
several different areas of the season’s work, including site L KOM, Camp ii, X, X-L,
Zi and Qasr Sagha. None of these sites are the focus of current research, and the
most important areas of Caton-Thompson’s work are considered to be the largest
mounds, Kom’s K and W where direct evidence for agriculture was first located.
There are some documents in the PRM manuscript collection associated with this
collection, including photographs and notes on the surrounding geology of the sites
made by Caton-Thompson’s colleague, Elinor Gardner.34 Caton-Thompson’s own
archaeological notes are in the Institute of Archaeology, London.35 Overall, the research
potential of this collection would be realized through a programme of research that
ranged across several museum collections, which may be productive given the object
contexts noted on the objects, as well as the associated excavation records.
Caton-Thompson also personally donated 145 flint implements (1924.47.1 .1–145)
acquired from the surface around Helwan (Caton-Thompson n.d.:13–19). The site was
a popular collecting spot since Reil drew attention to the thousands of microlithic and
blade tools strewn across the landscape in the 19th century (Browne 1878) and as a result
the area today is much denuded (Andie Byrnes pers. comm.). Many of these collectors
passed on their finds to the PRM, and there are an additional 101 implements in the
collection from Helwan, comprising 80 collected by F.Ll. Griffith (32 via Seligman),
19 bought at an auction of S.G. Hewlett’s collection, and 2 from John Evans’ personal
collection. The industry at Helwan is currently undated, although it has been suggested,
on the basis of the appearance of the distinctive Helwan points at Negav, that they
reached there from the Middle Euphrates around 7600 BCE (Gopher 1994). Currently,
however, no Helwan points are known from Sinai and a direct connection has not been
established. One problem in establishing whether the industry, or which parts of it, are
Epipalaeolithic or Neolithic is because it has not been fully published (Midant-Reynes
are in the collection, although many of these found their way into the PRM via other collectors such as
John Evans, Charles Seligman, Henry Forbes and the Ipswich Museum. Seton-Karr presented material to
over 200 museums and institutions worldwide, but much of this material lacks specific provenance, limiting
its utility. The examples in the PRM have not been examined in detail and most lack good descriptions and
chronological attributions, although several are certainly Neolithic and at least 2 are Palaeolithic (Milliken
2003: 172). From current documentation it can be established that at least 285 objects came via the Ipswich
Museum in 1966, but the provenance of all of these is uncertain and the associated records only state
‘Eastern Desert’. A further 57 were collected from the Fayum, 49 of which were received directly from
Seton-Karr in 1904 (1904.24.1–49), including Neolithic hollow-based arrow-heads. Some 65 pieces derive
from the flint mines at Wadi el-Sheikh (1900.45.1–13) discovered by Seton-Karr in 1896 (Seton-Karr 1898),
see below. The collection also includes a series of 8 specimens illustrating the earlier stages in the manufacture
of flint bracelets from discoidal pieces of flint (1900.22.1–8), and 3 pieces of coarse pottery (1900.22.9–11).
34
PRM Manuscripts Collection/Gardner Papers.
35
UCLA/IA/A/4.
2000: 89). Since the PRM possesses a sizeable number it would provide a one possible
starting point for an attempt to define this industry.
Further Neolithic stone tools came to the PRM in the 1930s and 1940s, but
in these cases the assemblages were made through surface collection over fairly
broad regions. This includes 20 arrow-heads (1940.12.811 .1–11, 1940.12.812 .1–7,
1940.12.835 .1– 2) from the large collection of over 3,500 artefacts from around the
world donated to the PRM by Charles and Brenda Seligman, many from Egypt, but
mostly all Palaeolithic (Milliken 2003).
5.5.5 Early Quarries
The collection includes archaeological material from a number of flint quarry sites.
Among these is material from Caton-Thompson’s investigation of the Early Dynastic
(Third Dynasty) and Old Kingdom gypsum quarry of Umm es-Sawan (Caton-
Thompson and Gardner 1934). Forty objects (1928.42.1–39, 1928.42.80) from this
fieldwork are held by the PRM, including gypsum vessels, crescent-shaped flint tools,
vessel blanks and rough-outs with flint tools still embedded in the surface. The site
has seen ongoing field investigation, and recent surveys have found similar objects
in situ (Bloxam and Heldal 2007; Heldal et al. 2009). These surveys, however, did not
recover any of the ‘crescent-shaped’ chert drills used for boring out the centres of the
vessel, which are in the PRM’s collection (Elizabeth Bloxam pers. comm.).
Also in the collection are about 542 stone implements from the Wadi es Sheikh in
the Eastern Desert, a well-known flint quarry first discovered by Seton-Karr in 1896
(Seton-Karr 1898). The collection donated by Charles G. Seligman (1940.12.788–796,
1940.12.800) and Seton-Karr are difficult to date, and indeed are probably variable in
terms of period represented: the former is largely made up of fine regular bladelets
and the latter includes some bifacial pieces that appear to be Predynastic in date. A
recent survey of the site (Negro and Cammelli 2010) noted that the majority of the
blades from the area were Twelfth Dynasty (Middle Kingdom) in date, although the
site was undoubtedly intensively exploited for its extensive high quality flint from the
Predynastic period.
5.5.6 Mesolithic and Neolithic Sudan
The PRM possesses 102 items from the excavation at the Khartoum Hospital site,
donated as a type-series including 47 pottery sherds with the diagnostic impressed
decoration and 55 stone tools: 29 microliths (1950.10.62 1–16), 8 scrapers on
flakes (1950.10.66. 1–10), 4 sandstone grinders (1950.10.55–58), 4 ochre grinders
(1950.10.46, 47, 53, 54), 4 borers (1950.10.64 .1–4), 3 small hammerstones
(1950.10.48–50), 2 stone rings (1950.10.51, 52) and a net sinker (1950.10.61). Almost
all of the artefacts are numbered with the square of the excavation, which can be
correlated with the tables published by Arkell (1949: 96, 105). There are a limited
number of museums with Khartoum material in the UK; there are 121 artefacts in
the Ashmolean Museum (of a similar profile to the PRM’s), 53 items in the British
Museum and 110 in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. Together then with
the Ashmolean Museum collection, the PRM collection is undoubtedly valuable as a
reference and teaching resource in Oxford.
Another significant collection, in terms of the history of archaeology, is made up
of 180 objects (1940.12.846) from Charles Seligman’s excavation of three mounds at
Faragab in Sudan, which he believed were prehistoric. His publication of the work
(Seligman 1916) represents the first interest in prehistoric archaeology in Sudan away
from the sphere of Egyptian influences (Edwards 2004: 5). This material was never
dated, but the fine decoration on the pottery sherds together with their high firing
and the presence of several decorated handles suggests a much later, possibly even
post-Roman, date (cf. Chapter 8). The PRM also houses a large collection from Jebel
Moya in Sudan, donated by Henry Wellcome who sponsored excavations at the site
over four seasons from 1910 – not so much for the archaeology, but as a way of
providing life-improving employment for the local population (Larson 2009: 58). The
earlier periods at the site are poorly recorded and understood, but re-examination of
sherds held by the British Museum demonstrated that there is evidence of Neolithic
occupation in the form of wavy-lined and dotted and wavy-line pottery (Caneva
1991). Of the 388 objects from the site in the PRM (1949.12.1–137), some 194 might
be prehistoric and as the example of the British Museum investigation shows (Caneva
1991) there is considerable scope for museum collections such as this to contribute
to a better identification and understanding of Neolithic Sudan (see also Brass 2009).
Of more certain early date are 18 objects were obtained from the Protodynastic
(A-Group) cemetery of Faras excavated by F.Ll. Griffith in 1911–12 (Griffith 1921a)36
and 4 artefacts37 that were donated by Balfour’s assistant curator Ernest Seymour
Thomas in 1925. The Griffith Institute (University of Oxford) houses the complete
and mostly unpublished field record of these excavations (Malek 1988) and thus these
objects could potentially be more fully contextualized as part of a wider re-assessment
of this only partially published site (Griffith 1921). Finally, there is a single small pottery
bowl with herringbone band fast below rim and incised lines (1946.8.78) donated by
Brenda Seligman in 1946 and which is said to be from Kordofan Baraeis. Material
collected by W.B.K. Shaw in 1935 from the Wadi Howar (1936.62.1–2) close to the
Libyan-Sudanese border, which includes some Neolithic dotted wavy lined pottery, is
discussed by Paul Lane in Chapter 8 as most of the material is seemingly later in date.
5.7 The Early Egyptian Collections after 1951

With the cessation of the BSAE and the limitations placed on UK work in Egypt
in the 1950s, fewer museum accessions of Egyptian objects were made after the
end of the British occupation of Egypt in 1952. In fact only two further groups
of donations have been made to the PRM since, neither of which derived from
excavations. The first of these donations was made in 1957 by a Mr H.E. Merry
and consisted of 87 stone tools38 that he had collected in Siwa Gara (Libyan Desert)
whilst serving in the First World War. These items have yet to be described and
identified. The other donation derived from the larger corpus of material transferred
from Ipswich Museum in 1966. The Seton-Karr collection that was part of this has
already be mentioned, but this was also accompanied by 8 Predynastic pottery vessels
from the Estate of Denis Alfred Jex Buxton (1895–1964), an RAF officer who had
been educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and was later a Fellow of the Society of
Antiquaries.39 At least one of these vessels40 – 1966.32.51 – has an old square labels
36
Some of these, such as the A-group pottery vessel (1951.4.04) were loaned to the Pitt Rivers by the
Ashmolean Museum in 1951. The others (1912.89.31–39), were received directly from Francis Lewellyn
Griffith in 1912. These include 3 quartz palettes, 5 polishing stones and 2 copper awls.
37
1925.32.12 black-topped pottery jar from Khor Bahan (University of Oxford excavations 1907–1908),
1925.32.6 large ground stone axe from Dabod, 1925.32.11 rhomboid-shaped palette, and 1925.32.13 small red
pottery jar painted in reticulate designs from Dakka. These were probably collected during his time in Cairo
where he prepared a catalogue of the ethnographic collections of the Royal Geographical Society of Egypt
38
1957.9.1 B–81B. There is also a map drawn by the donor associated with this accession and showing the
sites of ‘Jarabub’, ‘Elfara’ and ‘Siwa’ in relation to Cairo and the Mediterranean Sea.
39
One polished (P-Ware) vessel (1966.32.55), 3 black-topped (B-Ware) pottery vessels (1966.32.50,
1966.32.53–54), 2 decorated (D-Ware) vessels (1966.32.26) and (1966.32.24), a late wavy-handled (W-Ware)
vessel (1966.32.51) and a brown burnished Badarian bowl (1966.32.19).
40
Possibly two: see 1966.32.24.
referencing the site of Gebelein and the accession register suggests that they may
have originally derived from the largely unpublished work of Gaston Maspero at
Gebelein. Predynastic vessels such as this are popular with collectors and frequently
appear in auctions, but without provenance they are of limited utility to current
research given the large number of well-documented pieces.
5.8 Summary: Potential and Future Research

The early Egyptian collections of the Ashmolean Museum, are better known, better
studied, and more extensive than those of the PRM.41 Yet the PRM early Egypt
collection is distinctive, and holds significant research potential. The preponderance
of stone tools and organic specimens relative to other museum collections are an
untapped resource, most notably for the sites of el-Amrah, the settlement of el-
Mahasna, and the royal tombs of the First and Second Dynasty. There is significant
scope for programmes of radiocarbon dating and chemical investigative techniques
on the very numerous organic materials. At least two collections of stone tools – the
one from Mahasna and the one from Helwan – offer the opportunity to define stone
tool industries that are otherwise under-represented in museums, and little known in
the literature to date. In particular, the Mahasna material is striking as if any trend
can be seen in this review of the collecting practices associated with early Egypt
(as for many areas) it is the tendency to select singular artefacts or sets of artefacts
primarily for illustrative purposes, yet the Mahasna accession is more characteristic
of a whole assemblage. Other collections will require more preliminary description
and identification, such as those from the Sudan, but which represent less intensively
studied areas that are certainly deserving of the effort.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Elizabeth Bloxam, Günter Dreyer, and Vera Müller for helpful
advice on specific items in the collection and to Matthew Nicholas for his assistance
in accessing the collections.
References
Addison, F. 1949. Jebel Moya. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Amelineau, E. 1904. Les Nouvelles Fouilles d’Abydos III (1897–1898). Paris: Leroux.
Anderson, D. 2006. Power and Competition in the Upper Egyptian Predynastic: a view from
the Predynastic Settlement of El-Mahasna, Egypt. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of
Pittsburgh.
Arkell, A. 1949. Early Khartoum: an account of the excavation of an early occupation site.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Baba, M. and M. Saito 2004. Experimental studies on the firing methods of black-
topped pottery in Predynastic Egypt. In S. Hendrickx, R.F. Friedman, K.M. Cialowicz
and M. Chlodnicki (eds) Egypt at its Origins: studies in memory of Barbara Adams. Leuven:
Peeters Publishers (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 138), pp. 575–589.
Baines, J. 1996. Contextualising Egyptian representations of society and ethnicity.
In J.S. Cooper and G.M. Schwartz (eds) The Study of the Ancient Near East in the 21st
Century. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, pp. 339–384.
41
For example, see Payne’s (1993) catalogue of the Asmolean Museum’s Predynastic collection,
which lists over 2000 Predynastic Egyptian objects.
Baines, J. and J. Malek 2000. Cultural Atlas of Ancient Egypt. New York: Checkmark Books.
Balfour H. 1897. On a remarkable ancient bow and arrows believed to be of Assyrian
origin. Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 26: 210–220.
Bielen, S. 2004. The funerary objects from the Early Dynastic royal tombs at Abydos
in the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels. In S. Hendrickx, R.F. Friedman,
K.M. Cialowicz, and M. Chlodnicki (eds) Egypt at its Origins: studies in memory of Barbara
Adams. Leuven: Peeters Publishers (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 138), pp. 621–635.
Bloxam, E. and T. Heldal 2007. The industrial landscape of the northern Faiyum
Desert as a world heritage site: modelling ‘outstanding universal value’ of 3rd
millennium BC stone quarrying in Egypt. World Archaeology 39(3): 305–323.
Bommas, M. 1999: Zur Datierung einiger Briefe an die Toten. Göttinger Miszellen 173: 53–60.
Bowden, M. 1991. Pitt Rivers: the life and archaeological work of Lieutenant-General Augustus
Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brass, M. 2009. Towards an archaeology of social organisation at Jebel Moya, 5th–1st
millennium BC. Sudan and Nubia 13: 120–125.
Browne, A.J. 1878. On some flint implements from Egypt. The Journal of the
Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 7: 396.
Brunton, G. 1928. Qau and Badari II. London: British School of Archaeology in Egypt.
Brunton, G. 1930. Qau and Badari III. London: British School of Archaeology in Egypt.
Brunton, G. and G. Caton-Thompson 1928. The Badarian Civilization and Predynastic
Remains Near Badari. London: British School of Archaeology in Egypt.
Caneva, I. 1991. Jebel Moya revisited: a settlement of the 5th millennium BC in the
Middle Nile Basin. Antiquity 65: 262–268.
Caton-Thompson, G. n.d. Notes and Catalogue of Flint Implements from Abydos and Helwan.
London: Harrison and Sons (for Edwards Library, University College London).
Caton-Thompson, G. and E. Gardner 1934. The Desert Fayum. London: Royal
Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
Clarke, J.D., J.L. Phillips and P.S. Staley 1974. Interpretations of prehistoric technology
from ancient Egypt and other sources. Paleorient 2(2): 323–388.
Coghlan, H.H. 1951. Notes on the Prehistoric Metallurgy of Copper and Bronze in the Old World.
Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum (Pitt Rivers Museum Occasional Papers on Technology 4).
Crawford, O.G.S. 1948. People without history. Antiquity 22: 8–12.
Dee, M., C. Bronk Ramsey and J.M. Rowland 2008. Evaluating the effectiveness of
radiocarbon studies of the Old Kingdom. In H. Vymazalová and M. Bárta (eds)
Chronology and Archaeology in Ancient Egypt (The Third Millennium B.C.). Prague: Czech
Institute of Egyptology, pp. 1–9.
Dreyer, G. 1986. Der Tempel der Satet: die Funde der Frühzeit und des Alten Reiches. Mainz
am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern.
Drower, M. 1985. Flinders Petrie: a life in archaeology. London: V. Gollancz.
Edwards, D.N. 2004. The Nubian Past: an archaeology of the Sudan. London: Routledge.
Edwards, D.N. 2007. The archaeology of Sudan and Nubia. Annual Review of
Anthropology 36: 211–228.
Finkenstaedt, E. 1980. Regional painting style in prehistoric Egypt. Zeitschrift für
Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumsk 107: 116–120.
Fletcher, J. 2003. The Search for Nefertiti. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Friedman, R. 1994. Predynastic Settlement Ceramics of Upper Egypt: a comparative study of the
ceramics of Hemamieh, Nagada, and Hierakonpolis. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University
of California Berkeley.
Fuller, D. and L. Smith 2004. The prehistory of the Bayuda: new evidence from
the Wadi Maqaddam. In T. Kendall (ed.) Proceedings of the Ninth Conference of the
International Society of Nubian Studies. Boston, MA: Department of African-American
Studies, Northeastern University, pp. 265–281.
Gardiner, A. and K. Sethe. 1928. Egyptian Letters to the Dead: mainly from the Old and
Middle Kingdoms. London: Egypt Exploration Society.
Garstang, J. 1903. Mahâsna and Bêt Khallaf. London: Egypt Research Account.
Garstang, J. 1909. Excavations at Abydos 1909: preliminary description of the
principal finds. Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 2: 125–129.
Gilbert, G.P. 2004. Weapons, Warriors and Warfare in Early Egypt. Oxford: Archaeopress
(British Archaeological Reports International Series 1208).
Ginter, B. and J.K. Kozlowski 1983. Investigations on Neolithic settlement. In
J.K. Kozlowski (ed.) Qasr El-Sagha. Warszawa–Krakow: Państwowe Wydawn-Nakł
Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, pp. 37–67.
Gopher, A. 1994. Arrowheads of the Neolithic: a seriation analysis. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.
Gosden, C. and F. Larson 2007. Knowing Things: exploring the collections at the Pitt Rivers
Museum 1884–1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Griffith, F.Ll. 1921a. Oxford excavations in Nubia: Faras I–II the earliest periods,
Proto-Dynastic settlement and cemetery. Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and
Griffith, F.Ll. 1921b. Oxford excavations in Nubia: III Nubia from the Old to New
Kingdom. Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 8: 65–104.
Griffith, F.Ll. 1923. Oxford excavations in Nubia: XVIII–XXVI the cemetery of
Sanam. Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 10: 73–171.
Griffith, F.Ll. 1924. Oxford excavations in Nubia: XXXIII the Meroitic cemetery at
Faras. Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 11: 141–80.
Griffith, F.Ll. 1925. Oxford excavations in Nubia. Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and
Griffith, F.Ll. 1925. Oxford excavations in Nubia. Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and
Hassan, F. 1985. Radiocarbon chronology of Neolithic and Predynastic sites in Upper
Egypt and the Delta. African Archaeological Review 3(1): 95–115.
Hassan, F. 1986. Chronology of the Khartoum ‘Mesolithic’ and ‘Neolithic’ and
related sites in the Sudan: statistical analysis and comparison with Egypt. African
Archaeological Review 4(1): 83–102.
Heldal, T., E. Bloxam, P. Degryse, P. Storemyr and A. Kelany. 2009. Gypsum quarries
in the Northern Faiyum quarry landscape, Egypt: a geo-archaeological case study.
In N. Abu-Jaber, E. Bloxam, P. Degryse and T. Heldal (eds) Quarryscapes: ancient stone
quarry landscapes in the Eastern Mediterranean. Norway: Geological Survey of Norway
(Special Publication 12), pp. 51–66.
Hendrickx, S. 2006. Predynastic–Early Dynastic chronology. In E. Hornung, R.
Krauss and D.A. Warburton (eds) Ancient Egyptian Chronology. Leiden: Brill (Handbook
of Oriental Studies 1: the Near and Middle East 83), pp. 53–93.
Hendrickx, S. and E.C.M. van den Brink. 2002. Inventory of Predynastic and Early
Dynastic cemetery and settlement sites in the Egyptian Nile Valley. In E.C.M. van
den Brink and T. Levy (eds) Egypt and Levant: interrelations from the 4th through the early
3rd Millennium B.C.E. London and New York: Leicester University Press, pp. 499–513
Hendrickx, S., S. Bielen and P. de Papepe 2001. Excavating in the museum: the stone
vessel fragments from the royal tombs at Umm el-Qaab in the Egyptian collection
of the Royal Museums for Art and History at Brussels. Mitteilungen des Deutschen
Archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo 57: 73–108.
Holdaway, S., W. Wendrich and R. Phillipps 2010. Identifying low-level food
producers: detecting mobility from lithics. Antiquity 84: 185–194.
Holmes, D. 1989. The Predynastic Lithic Industries of Upper Egypt: a comparative study of
the lithic traditions of Badari, Nagada, and Hierakonpolis. Oxford: British Archaeological
Reports (British Archaeological Reports International Series 469).
Hornung, E., R. Krauss and D. Warburton (eds) 2006. Ancient Egyptian Chronology.
Leiden: Brill (Handbook of Oriental Studies 1: the Near and Middle East 83).
Johnson, J. de. M. 1914. Antinoe and its Papyri. London: Egypt Exploration Fund.
Keimer, M.L. 1936. Bemerkungen zu Altagyptischen Bogen aus Antilopenhörnen.
Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 72: 121–128.
Keita, S.O.Y. and A.J. Boyce. 2006. Variation in porotic hyperostosis in the royal
cemetery complex at Abydos, Upper Egypt: a social interpretation. Antiquity 80: 64–73.
Kemp, B. 1968. The Osiris temple at Abydos. Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen
Institutes, Abteilung Kairo 23: 138–155.
Killen, G. 1994. Ancient Egyptian Furniture. Vol.2: boxes, chests and footstools. Warminster: Shire.
Kobusiewicz, M., J. Kabacinski, R. Schild, J. Irish and F. Wendorf, 2004. Discovery of
the first Neolithic cemetery in Egypt’s western desert. Antiquity 78: 566–578.
Larson, F. 2009. An Infinity of Things: how Henry Wellcome collected the world. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Lucas, A. 1929. The nature of the colour of pottery with special reference to that of
ancient Egypt. Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 59: 113–129.
Lucas, A. 1932. Black and black-topped pottery. Annales du Service des antiquités de
l’Egypte 32: 93–96.
MacGregor, N. 2010. A History of the World in 100 Objects. London: British Museum.
Malek, J. 1988. Nubian and Meroitic material in the archives of the Griffith Institute,
Oxford. Beiträge zur Sudanforschung 3: 49–55.
Midant-Reynes, B. 2000. The Prehistory of Egypt from the First Egyptians to the First
Pharaohs. Oxford: Blackwell.
Milliken, S. 2003. Catalogue of Palaeolithic Artefacts from Egypt in Pitt Rivers Museum.
Oxford: Archaeopress (British Archaeological Reports International Series 1166).
Naville, E. 1907. The XIth Dynasty Temple at Deir el-Bahari. London: Egypt Exploration
Fund.
Negro, M. and M. Cammelli 2010. The flint quarries of Wadi el Sheikh (Eastern
Desert Of Egypt). Sahara 21: 107–117.
Payne, J.C. 1993. Catalogue of the Predynastic Egyptian Collection in the Ashmolean Museum.
Second Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Peet, T.E. and C.L. Woolley. 1923. The City of Akhenaten Part I. London: Egypt
Exploration Fund.
Petrie, W.M.F. 1889. Hawara, Biahmu, and Arsinoe. London: Field and Tuer.
Petrie, W.M.F. 1890. Kahun, Gurob and Hawara. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner, and co.
Petrie, W.M.F. 1891. Illahun, Kahun and Gurob. London: David Nutt.
Petrie, W.M.F. 1892. Medum. London: David Nutt.
Petrie, W.M.F. 1894. A History of Egypt. London: Methuen and Co.
Petrie, W.M.F. 1899. Sequences in prehistoric remains. Journal of the Anthropological
Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 3/4: 295–301.
Petrie, W.M.F. 1896. Koptos. London: Bernard Quaritch.
Petrie, W.M.F. 1898a. Dendereh. London: Egypt Exploration Fund.
Petrie, W.M.F. 1898b. Deshasheh. London: Egypt Exploration Fund.
Petrie, W.M.F. 1901a. The Royal Tombs of the Earliest Dynasties. Part II. London: Egypt
Exploration Fund.
Petrie, W.M.F. 1901b. Diospolis Parva: the cemeteries of Abadiyeh and Hu. 1898–9. London:
Egypt Exploration Fund.
Petrie, W.M.F. 1902. Abydos I. London: Egypt Exploration Fund.
Petrie, W.M.F. 1903. Abydos II. London: Egypt Exploration Fund.
Petrie, W.M.F. 1904a. Aims and Methods in Archaeology. London: MacMillan and Co.
Petrie, W.M.F. 1904b. Ehnasya. London: Egypt Exploration Fund.
Petrie, W.M.F. 1905. Roman Ehnasya (Herakleopolis Magna). London: Egypt Exploration Fund.
Petrie, W.M.F. 1921. Corpus of Prehistoric Pottery and Palettes. London: British School of
Archaeology in Egypt.
Petrie, W.M.F. 1925. Tombs of the Courtiers. London: British School of Archaeology in Egypt.
Petrie, W.M.F. and C.T. Currelly 1906. Researches in Sinai. London: J. Murray.
Petrie, W.M.F., G.A. Wainwright and A.H. Gardiner 1913. Tarkhan I and Memphis V.
London: British School of Archaeology in Egypt.
Pitt-Rivers, A.H.L.F. 1882. On the discovery of chert implements in stratified gravel
in the Nile Valley near Thebes. Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and
Ireland 11: 382–400.
Pitt-Rivers, A.H.L.F. 1883. On the Egyptian boomerang and its affinities. Journal of the
Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 12: 454–463.
Quibell, J. 1898. The Ramesseum. London: Egyptian Research Account.
Quibell, J. and F.W. Green 1898. Hierakonpolis II. London: Egyptian Research Account.
Randall-MacIver, D. and A. Mace 1902. El-Amrah and Abydos 1899–1901. London:
Egypt Exploration Fund.
Randall-MacIver, D. 1905. The manufacture of pottery in Upper Egypt. Journal of the
Randall-MacIver, D. and C.L. Woolley 1909. Areika. Pittsburgh: University Press.
Randall-MacIver, D. 1932. Canons of archaeological theory. Nature 130 (24 Sept.): 462–464.
Ridgeway, D. 1983. David Randall-MacIver 1873–1945. Proceedings of the British
Academy 69: 559–577.
Reed, C. 1987. Henry Chapman Mercer and the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Reisner, G.A. 1910. The Archaeological Survey of Nubia: report for 1907–1908. Cairo:
National Print Department.
Rowland, J.M. 2008. Building bridges between radiocarbon, relative and historical
chronologies: the case of early Egypt. In H. Vymazalová and M. Bárta (eds) Chronology
and Archaeology in Ancient Egypt (The Third Millennium B.C.). Prague: Czech Institute of
Egyptology, pp. 10–22.
Seidlmayer, S.J. 1988. Funerärer Aufwand und soziale Ungleicheit: Eine methodische
Anmerkung zum Problem der Rekonstrucktion der gesellschaftlichen Gliederung aus
Friedhofsfunden. Göttinger Miszellen 104: 25–51.
Seligman, C.G. 1916. A prehistoric site in north Kordofan. Liverpool Annals Of
Archaeology And Anthropology 7: 107–114.
Serpico, M. 2000. Resins, amber and bitumen. In P. Nicholson and I. Shaw (eds) Ancient
Egyptian Materials and Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 430–474.
Serpico, M. 2006. Past, Present and Future: an overview of ancient Egyptian and Sudanese
collections in the UK. London: Association for Curators of Collections from Egypt and
Sudan.
Seton-Karr, W.H. 1898. Discovery of the lost flint mines of Egypt. Journal of the
Shaw, I. 2000. The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stevenson, A. 2009. The Predynastic Egyptian Cemetery of el-Gerzeh: social identities and
mortuary practices. Leuven: Peeters Publishers (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 186).
Stevenson, A. 2011. Pitt-Rivers and Egypt. http://web.prm.ox.ac.uk/rpr/index.php/
article-index/12-articles/495-pitt-rivers-and-egypt (accessed 22 February 2012).
Teeter, E. (ed.) 2011. Egypt Before the Pyramids: the origins of Egyptian civilization. Chicago:
Oriental Institute Chicago (Oriental Institute Museum Publications 33).
van Haarlem, W.M. 1995. Temple deposits at Tell Ibrahim Awad: a preliminary report.
Göttinger Miszellen 148: 45–52.
van Haarlem, W.M. 1996. Temple deposits at Tell Ibrahim Awad: an update. Göttinger
Miszellen 154: 31–34.
Wainwright, G.A. 1912. Chapter 1: the site of el-Gerzeh. In W.M.F. Petrie, G.A.
Wainwright and E. Mackay (eds) The Labyrinth, Gerzeh and Mazghuneh. Warmister:
British School of Archaeology in Egypt, pp. 1–12.
Wendorf, F. and R. Schild 1976.  Prehistory of the Nile Valley. New York: Academic Press.
Wendrich, W. and R. Cappers 2005. Egypt’s earliest granaries: evidence from the
Fayum. Egyptian Archaeology 27: 12–15.
Western, C. and W. McLeod. 1995. Woods used in Egyptian bows and arrows. Journal
of Egyptian Archaeology 81: 77–94.
Whitehouse, H. 2008. Ancient Egypt and Nubia in the Ashmolean Museum. Oxford:
Ashmolean Museum.
Wilkinson, T. 1999. Early Dynastic Egypt. London: Routledge.
Willems, H. (ed.) 2001. Social Aspects of Funerary Culture in the Old and Middle Kingdoms.
Leuven: Peeters Publishers (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 103).

Chapter 5. Egypt and Sudan Mesolithic To Early Dynastic (World Archaeology at The Pitt Rivers Museum)

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Chapter 5. Egypt and Sudan Mesolithic To Early Dynastic (World Archaeology at The Pitt Rivers Museum)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Cite this paper as: Alice Stevenson 2013. Egypt and Sudan: Mesolithic to Early Dynastic Period.

Egypt and Sudan: Mesolithic

Figure 5.1 The Oxford

Figure 5.2 Egyptian

Hierakonpolis 1897–98 ERA Quibell and Green 1902 1 EEF

5.2 Excavations and Museum collections

Figure 5.3 Map of

Figure 5.4 Map

University of Oxford (Oxford Expedition to Nubia; Henry Wellcome’s campaigns).

5.3 Overview of the Mesolithic, Neolithic, Predynastic and Early Dynastic

Table 5.3 Archaeological Phase Description cal. BCE

5.4 History and Background to the Mesolithic, Neolithic, Predynastic and

5.5 Significant Collections (Mesolithic–Early Dynastic Periods)

Figure 5.5 Drawing

David Randall-MacIver and Anthony Wilkin excavated the site of el-Amrah

baskets (1901.29.138–9), fragments of cord (1901.29.127), reed mat work samples

Figure 5.6 Painted

Figure 5.7 Painted

Figure 5.8 Model ivory

and donated by Charles Trick Currely in 1924 (1924.40.42, 1924.40.46–64), both of

5.7 The Early Egyptian Collections after 1951

5.8 Summary: Potential and Future Research

You might also like